A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets Of America Contest Winners

Big Back Yard Michael Teig [selected by Stephen Dobyns]
Elegy with a Glass of Whiskey Crystal Bacon [selected by Stephen Dunn]
Even the Hollow My Body Made Is Gone Janice N. Harrington [selected by Elizabeth Spires]
Falling to Earth Tom Hansen [selected by Molly Peacock]
The Boatloads Dan Albergotti [selected by Ed Hirsch]
The Eclipses David Woo [selected by Michael S. Harper]

Other titles in the New Poets of America Series
Along the Dark Shore (out of print) Edward Byrne
An Unkindness of Ravens Meg Kearney
Awake (out of print) Dorianne Laux
Beast is a Wolf with Brown Fire Barry Wallenstein
Bell 8 Rick Lyon
Borders Mary Crow
Bruise Theory Natalie Kenvin
Hour Between Dog and Wolf Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Hunting Down the Monk Adrie Kusserow
Hurricane Walk Diann Blakely
Meteorology Alpay Ulku
News of Home Debra Kang Dean
Rare Earths Deena Linett
Rose Li-Young Lee
Shattering Air David Biespiel
The Daughters of Discordia (out of print) Suzanne Owens
Where We Live Peter Makuck
Whomp and Moonshiver (out of print) Thomas Whitbread

Jennifer Kronovet Is Awarded The 2008 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize

Jennifer Kronovet is the 2008 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize winner for her first collection of poems, Awayward. Jean Valentine selected this manuscript from 17 semi-finalists and will write a Foreword to the published collection. Kronovet will receive a $1,500 honorarium and book publication by BOA Editions, Ltd. in March, 2009, in the A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series.  

An annual competition, the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize is open to poets who have yet to publish a full-length-book collection of poetry. This year’s finalists were XING by Debora Kuan; Good Question by Sally Fisher; and Point Everywhere by Patrick Culliton.

Jennifer Kronovet’s winning manuscript was chosen from a field of 908 entries. Jean Valentine says, “Jennifer Kronovet’s poems in Awayward are so surprising and compelling and beautiful, so intelligent and felt. Kronovet uses simple words and works at a mysterious depth, one we can enter with gladness.”

BOA Editions will be accepting manuscripts for the eighth annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize between August 1, 2008 and November 30, 2008.  An entry form and fee are required. The guidelines for the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize will be announced on this page later this year.

Jennifer Kronovet's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Colorado Review, Crowd, Harp & Altar, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, A Public Space, and other journals. She is the co-founder and co-editor of CIRCUMFERENCE, a journal of poetry in translation. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis, an MA in Applied Linguistics from Columbia University Teachers College, and a BA in English from the University of Chicago. Jennifer wrote many of the poems in Awayward while living in Beijing, China. She now resides in her native New York City.

Jean Valentine was born in Chicago, earned her B.A. from Radcliffe College, and has lived most of her life in New York City. She won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker, in 1965. Her most recent book is Little Boat (Wesleyan University Press, 2007). Her previous collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965 - 2003, was the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry.